Anschluss 1938: Aftermath on Medicine and Society

Abstract

a perpetrator of it. While invading Austria, poorly prepared German troops were surprised to be received with cheering crowds, much less the overcrowded Heldenplatz during Hitler's speech to the Austrian population on 15 March 1938. Everything was well prepared for the arrival of the German occupiers: already the years before, subsidiaries of the NSDAP were active in Austria, and there were suddenly hundreds of thousands of swastikas and flags available and an extreme and sophisticated system of denunciation. Many Austrians, including doctors, achieved leading positions during the Nazi period. Doctors represented the highest proportion of Austrian academics who were members of the NSDAP (though it is worth noting that many of their Jewish colleagues had already been expelled from the country), and they were heavily implicated in committing ethical misconduct, in particular in the execution of the "euthanasia" T4-programme, where handicapped children and adults were killed. After World War II, many tainted physicians and university professors were reinstated in their former positions and had the opportunity of a postwar career. This was the main reason for the general backlog in research and development in Austria in comparison with most countries of the Western world.

History of cerebral localization and the emigration plight of three neuroscience giants from Nazi Germany: Josef Gerstmann, Adolf Wallenberg, and Franz Josef Kallmann

“…The threat to livelihood became a reality on March 13, 1938, when Austria was annexed to Germany and Nazi sympathizers sprouted among the employees of the MTS Neurological Institute. 43 For Gerstmann, this change brought concerns but did not sway his mind to emigrate. It was his wife, Martha Gerstmann, who viewed the changing political climate as worrisome, and that viewpoint ultimately persuaded the couple to emigrate.…”